JUDY WOODRUFF: As the Senate
returned to Washington and House
members stayed home, last night,
on FOX News, President Trump
declared the economy is on
its way to a speedy recovery.
Here to analyze the politics
of his response and more, Amy
Walter of The Cook Political
Report and the host of
public radio's "Politics
With Amy Walter," and
Tamara Keith of NPR.
She also co-hosts the
"NPR Politics Podcast."
Hello to both of you.
And before I turn to you, I
want to let you listen to some
of what President Trump had
to say at this FOX town hall
last night, and also some of
what Joe Biden had to say today
at a different town hall that
had to do with helping essential
workers, particularly in
the Latino community.
Let's listen to both of
those, and I will come back.
DONALD TRUMP, President
of the United States:
You get a job where you
make more money, frankly.
And I think that's
going to happen.
I think we're going to have an
incredible following year. We're
going to go into a transition
in the third quarter, and we're
going to see things happening
that look good. I really
believe that. I have a good
feel for this stuff. I have
done it for a long time.
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential
Candidate: You know, I have
put out a detailed plan about
what I think we should be
doing right now to support our
front-line workers and address
the disparities we're
seeing with COVID-19 impacts
all across the country.
And I truly think that,
if we do this right,
we have an incredible
opportunity to not just
dig out of this crisis,
but to fundamentally
transform the country.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Amy, I'm
going to come to you first.
You have the president pivoting
to talk about the economy at a
time when, frankly, the numbers
of cases and deaths on COVID
are not looking very good. The
president acknowledged that
in part last night. But he's
talking about the economy,
saying it's going to get better.
Joe Biden, on the other
hand, talking about how
we need to protect these
front-line workers.
What do you make of these two
approaches? Here we are in
May of this election year.
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political
Report: That's right.
You can hear it with President
Trump last night in that town
hall. He was so nostalgic
for that time before COVID,
when the economy was strong, his
numbers on handling the economy
so strong, and his focus was
winning the election on the
strength of a good economy.
And now here we are with
this pandemic that is
not just devastating our
health, but obviously
devastating the economy. And
he wants to, and he said over
and over again, bring America
back, we need to get
Americans working, we need
to get this economy back.
With Joe Biden, what I
find really interesting,
Judy, is that --
especially that clip that
put in there, was Joe Biden
was attacked by many in the
progressive community for not
wanting to be progressive -- for
not being progressive enough,
for being really a status-quo
stand-in.
And what he's doing is
not just talking about
bringing the economy
back, but putting a focus
on the people who are looking
to make more structural --
what he is looking to do is
make more structural change
by focusing on the people who
right now are not just on the
front lines -- he talked a lot
about meatpacking workers --
but who also are -- were doing
poorly in the economy before
the COVID-19 outbreak and
continue to struggle even now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Tam, as
you listen to this and you look
at what these two candidates
are saying, what does it
tell you about where they see
themselves in this contest?
TAMARA KEITH, National Public
Radio: President Trump wanted
his campaign slogan, had been
sort of rolling out to
be, keep America great.
And now it's more like, make
America great again, again.
But, you know, you have a
situation where you have the
president of the United States
with all the advantages of
incumbency that a president
of the United States has. And
you have Joe Biden sort
of stuck in his basement
doing these Webcasts,
trying his best to campaign.
But it's very different.
Now, obviously, President
Trump can't go to rallies. He
is yearning for a day when he
can get back out in an arena
with 25,000 people. Unclear
when or if that will happen.
But, certainly, he still has
the ability to, you know, get
on Air Force One, like he's
going to do tomorrow,
and sort of flaunt the
power of the presidency.
JUDY WOODRUFF:
That's right, Amy.
The president tomorrow is
going to fly from Washington to
Arizona to visit a company where
they manufacture protective
gear, masks that people are
wearing right now. How much of
an advantage does the
president have at a time like
this? Joe Biden is at home.
AMY WALTER: Right.
And you could hear if
that audio, he wasn't
just in the basement.
He was sitting, I think,
on some sort of porch
or something. You could
hear crickets or frogs
or something in the
background, while the president
gets to not only fly in Air
Force One, but sits at the
Lincoln Memorial. The
contrast couldn't be stronger.
At the same time even with those
advantages, Judy, the president
is still looking at approval
ratings that are in some
cases 20 to 30 points
lower than governors in
many of these states,
red states, blue states.
All these governors have
used this opportunity
in the spotlight, under
this crisis moment,
to meet that moment.
This president has met it in
the same way he meets every
moment, which is in this very
polarizing, sort of predictable
way. And so what should be
a big advantage of a bully
pulpit has not
worked out that way.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: And,
Tam -- go ahead, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH: This trip to
Arizona is an official event.
It is not a campaign event.
But it is not a coincidence
that the president is going to
Arizona. It's a state that he
won in 2016. But the reality is
that it's fully in play in 2020.
His campaign has talked to
-- I talked to someone from
his campaign today. They have
had people on the ground there
since 2015. But there's a real
sense that this is a state
that they're going to
have to fight for, that
Arizona used to be red
Arizona, isn't a guarantee.
And, certainly, under the
current circumstances,
it's not a guarantee.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Amy, you
brought up the governors. We
are seeing right now a number
of states, I guess, what is it,
they're saying 29, 30 states,
go ahead and planning to open
up again, even with
these forecasts of
rising cases and deaths.
And the states that seem to
be moving ahead, more of them
have Republican governors. The
states that are saying, no,
let's wait, more of them
have Democratic governors.
How partisan is this right now?
AMY WALTER: Yes, it's
really interesting, Judy.
The Kaiser Foundation had an
interesting pullout this morning
that looked at -- or some data
out this morning that looked at
the rate of growth, especially
over the last two weeks,
in states that had Democratic
governors and states that
had Republican governors.
Now, while it is true
that states that have
Democratic governors
overall have more deaths,
even per capita, than those
who have red governors,
when you look over the
last two weeks at the
rate of growth in both cases
and deaths, it is the red states
that are seeing an incredible
uptick.
So, the question -- and you
are right to ask this, Judy --
is, what if this is true that
we're not only going to see
more cases, but more deaths in
red states? Is that going to
change the perception by
people who live in those states
and governors on this issue?
And what I found really
interesting, I was
digging through some
polls taken in Michigan
and in Florida. These are two
battleground states. One has
a Democratic governor. One
has a Republican governor.
When you asked voters in those
states, how worried are you
about actually contracting
coronavirus, and then asked
specifically, very worried or
somewhat worried, the people
who said they were very worried
also happened to line up
pretty closely with whether you
were a Clinton voter or not.
So, in Michigan, it
was something like 52
percent of Clinton voters
said they were very
worried about that, of getting
coronavirus, 57 percent in
Florida. But among voters who
voted for Trump in 2016,
a quarter or a third
said they were very
worried about this issue.
So, you can see at that moment,
whether you have a red governor
-- you're in a red state
or a blue state, governor who
is Democrat, governor who's
Republican, the voter themselves
and the ideological lens through
which they're looking also
is impacting how serious they
believe the threat of
COVID infection is.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Tam, you
have got 30 seconds.
TAMARA KEITH: Yes.
So, I was talking to a
researcher at Hamilton
College about this.
And he was pointing out
that, up until this
point, there's been sort
of a disproportionate
weight of the coronavirus
being borne by counties that
were Clinton counties, that
went for Hillary Clinton.
And there are also a lot
of racial disparities
that are underlying
that and might explain
why the politics are the
way they are. But that
could certainly change
as the virus changes
the way it affects the country.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So interesting,
these numbers state by state.
We're seeing things we didn't
see just a month or so ago.
Tamara Keith, Amy Walter,
we thank you both.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.